


Fate Tales

by muking



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: M/M, and daddy jokes, and like 16, ashton falls asleep daily, calum and luke are annoying, lots of dad jokes, michael and ashton work in an office, office!AU, they have cubicles, they're adopted bye, what is this title????? the world may never know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 01:12:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3550532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muking/pseuds/muking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What's your son's name?"</p>
<p>Michael looks startled at the question, dropping the phone and raising his eyebrows at the boy in the cubical across from him. "Which one? I've got two." </p>
<p>or the one where Michael and Ashton work in an office and Calum and Luke are annoying (and also, like, legally Michael's tiny sons).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fate Tales

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS SO DUMB I'M JUST SO WEAK OVER 16-17 YEAR OLD CAKE AND 23 YEAR OLD OFFICE MASHTON. CALUM STANDS ON A CUBICLE WALL AT ONE POINT. BYE.

"What's your son's name?"

Michael looks startled at the question, dropping the phone and raising his eyebrows at the boy in the cubical across from him. "Which one? I've got two."

Ashton glances at the picture framed on the edge of Michael's desk. There's two boys in it, Ashton figures they're his brothers or cousins or something, because they only look about five years younger than Ashton's coworker, at the most. There's a poem hanging on the wall next to the picture frame, stating things about Michael that the person who wrote it loves (your stupid hair, the dumb washing machine you bought when ours broke, your money, etc.).

Ashton shrugs and feels his lips tilt up. "Both of them."

Michael's face lights up instantly, apparently thrilled to be talking about his kids. He snatches the picture off the edge of his desk and holds it against his chest, glancing down at it. "This is Calum," he points to the sulky looking one with his arms crossed over his chest, flashes of blonde coloring the top of his black hair. There's a few tattoos littering his arms, black ink standing out against his darker skin.

Michael points at the other one in the picture, the one with slightly chubby cheeks, pale skin, and a bright blonde fringe. He has his arm thrown around Calum's shoulder and a giant smile on his face. "That's Luke. They're both seventeen- well, Luke's sixteen, but he's almost seventeen."

Ashton raises his eyebrows again. He's pretty sure Michael's only like, 23 at the most. That means Michael would have been six when they were born.

"They're adopted," Michael explains, leaning forward and rolling across the little isle that separates their cubicles. Ashton's heart picks up as he comes closer. Ashton's had a dumb crush on Michael since the company's last Christmas party, where Michael had started dancing purposely bad to watch the way his son's had blushed brightly.

"Yeah?" Ashton asks, trying not to move away when Michael stops right in front of him. He hands over the pictures and their fingers brush, causing blush to rise on Ashton's cheeks. He ducks his head down and looks at the picture to try to hide his burning cheeks.

"Yeah, I went to college for painting, and had to paint a mural at an orphanage for one of my classes," Michael explains. "Calum and Luke were only 12 and 13 then, and the headmistress told me that was usually the cut off for being adopted. After that, kids usually just went into foster homes until they turned 18 and got kicked out."

Ashton glances up to see the way Michael's already looking at him dreamily, almost nostalgically, chewing on his bottom lip.

"I couldn't let that happen, you know?" Michael says softly. "Calum had really curly hair back then, kept trying to straighten it. It didn't work very well because the straightener was crap, but he tried. And Luke was really quiet and generally just stuck to Calum. They were both really cute and sassy and innocent, I couldn't just let foster care take that away from them."

He smiles brightly, locking his eyes with Ashton's.

"That's really nice, Mike," Ashton replies softly. His heart is melting because Michael is just so caring. Of course. Not only is he pretty and polite and basically the picture perfect dream for Ashton, but he's caring enough to adopt two kids at the age of nineteen. Ashton's pretty sure that Michael's soul purpose on this earth is to ruin his life.

°°°°

"Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike!"

"Guess what day it is?"

Ashton glances up in amusement (the numbers on his computer screen were kind of bluring together anyway). Michael sighs loudly from his desk, but there's a small smile stretching on his lips. He rolls away from his desk just as two boys come hopping down the hall towards them.

"Its Tuesday, you idiots," Michael rolls his eyes.

The shorter if the two, the one Ashton recognizes as Luke, grins widely when he stops in front of Michael's cubical doorway. He holds up a pair of car keys and Michael rolls his eyes again. "I told you not to drive my car."

"Yeah, I know, but I can drive!" Luke stresses, practically shaking with excitement. The sulky one, Calum, shoves past Luke and plops himself down in Michael's lap, hooking an arm around Michael's neck to stay on top of him.

Michael glances up and notices Ashton watching them. "Luke just got his license," he explains.

"Ah," Ashton nods, smiling slightly at Luke. "Congratulations."

Luke grins at him, all white teeth and bright blue eyes. "Thanks, wanna see my car?"

Michael scoffs and rolls forward on his wheely chair, only struggling a little with Calum still clinging to him. "My car, you little shit!" He snatches the keys out of Luke's hand, forcing a pout from the shorter boy.

"Who's that?" Calum asks suddenly, pointing straight at Ashton. "He's hot, do you have an office affair going on here?"

Michael gasps and shoves Calum off his lap, forcing him to fall to the ground with a thud. "Calum!" He yells, earning several shushes from the rest of their coworkers.

Calum scowls. "Ow, dad!"

"Oh, shut it," Michael shoves him a little with his toe. Ashton's pretty sure his cheeks are about to burn off. "Why are you two even here?"

Calum holds his hand up, waving it wildly in the air, until Luke goes over and helps him up. As soon as he's on his feet, he says, "Luke needs some money."

Luke shoves him weakly, considering Luke is a good two inches shorter than Calum, who has an athletic build and quite a few muscles. And Luke resembles a noodle. "We need money," Luke corrects.

"Then you should get jobs," Michael counters. Luke's bottom lip sticks out instantly, blue eyes going wide. "Luke, I swear, don't you dare," Michael warns.

Luke's face scrunches up slightly and his eyes start filling up with tears. Ashton's three seconds away from giving the poor kid money himself. Calum and Michael both groan and roll their eyes, Ashton figures this happens a lot.

"God damn it, Luke," Michael scowls. "You're making me look like an awful parent."

"I just- we just want to eat, Mikey," Luke says quietly.

"You had two bowls of cereal for breakfast!" Michael points out. "I watched you eat them!" Calum snorts a little and glances over at Ashton. Ashton gestures for him to come closer, while Michael's distracted with trying to get Luke not to cry. Calum's tall enough that he can rest his arms on top of the edge of Ashton's cubical, resting his chin on top of them and sending Ashton a small smile.

Ashton digs in his pocket and pulls out a twenty dollar bill, slipping it to Calum after making sure Michael's still preoccupied. "Don't tell Michael."

"Never," Calum grins. He thanks Ashton quietly, before ducking down and grabbing Luke around the waist. "On second thought, I think we're good!" He announces loudly.

"Cal, I was just about to break him!" Luke groans. Calum shushes him and drags him away with a shouted, "Bye, Michael! Bye Ashton!"

As soon as they're out of sight, Michael turns to Ashton in bewilderment. "Did you just slip my kid money?"

Ashton spins around to face his computer again. "Nope!"

°°°°

"Are you doing anything for New Years?"

Michael shrugs while trying to get the sleeves of his jacket straightened out. "Sitting at home, I guess."

Ashton wants to remind him that he's 23, not 50. Instead, he says, "Did you, you know, want to?"

"Not really," Michael shoves one arm into his jacket and doesn't even bother looking up.

"Oh," Ashton replies.

"Oh," Michael says suddenly, glancing up, and let's his mouth drop open slightly. "Did you mean, like, with you?"

Ashton's blushing again. He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and shrugs. "I- yeah. I did, yes."

Michael's face twists up slightly. "I'm really sorry, Ash. Calum's going to a party or something, and Luke wasn't invited, so I don't want to make him stay hone alone all night. Otherwise I would, I swear."

"That's alright," Ashton grabs his gloves off his desk and sends Michael a slight smile. "Maybe another time then."

"Yeah," Michael frowns when Ashton starts to leave. He feels like complete shit, because it took him a week to get the courage to ask Michael out, the day before New Years Eve. Of course Michael had turned him down, he's basically a dad, he's probably busy all the time. He reaches the elevator before Michael catches up with him.

"Did- did you want to stay with Luke and I?" He asks as the doors open. Ashton steps in and raises his eyebrows at the taller boy. "I mean, we'll probably just watch movies and fall asleep at ten, but I'd much rather fall asleep with you than just my sulky son."

Ashton cracks a smile at that. Even though he thought Calum was the sulky one. "I don't want to interrupt your bonding time."

"He'll probably be angrily texting his friends all night about how he's stuck at home with his crappy dad, he's not even going to acknowledge me unless I offer up food," the elevator dings and the doors slide open again.

"I don't think you're a crappy dad, Mikey," Ashton says softly. Michael turns and smiles at him, and Ashton blushes and smiles back for so long, the elevator doors start sliding closed again.

Michael sticks his arm out and shoves them back open, finally breaking eye contact. "Yeah, anyway, we'll probably just watch movies the whole night, if you're up for that."

"Yeah, I- I can do movies,"


End file.
